


Pairidaeza

by Snowgrouse



Category: Original Work, Thief of Bagdad (1940), كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة | Kitaab 'alf layla wa-layla | One Thousand and One Nights
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Erotic Poetry, Erotica, F/M, Magic, Poetry, Prose Poem, Romance, The Thousand And One Nights - Freeform, The Thousand And One Nights - Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-20
Updated: 2013-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-26 04:36:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/646631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowgrouse/pseuds/Snowgrouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a man in her garden, and he is watching her, whispering to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pairidaeza

**Author's Note:**

> "There's a gardener here who watches night and day. His name is Death," she says. And then we discover Jaffar has been watching her through his crystal. She has been feeling this dark, frightening presence in her garden--yet she must have also been somewhat excited, aroused by it. Because that would explain why the moment Ahmad appears in her garden, pretending to be a djinni, she falls for him instantly. It's because she has been waiting for her mysterious, invisible man to materialise. Only it wasn't meant to be Ahmad. It was meant to be Jaffar.

There is a man in her garden.

She knows this cannot be so, for the gates of her garden are barred to all men.

There is a man in her garden, and he is watching her.

She knows this cannot be so, for to gaze upon her is suicide. 

There is a man in her garden, and he is watching her, whispering to her.

She knows this cannot be so, for no one is speaking, and she wonders if she is going mad. 

Yet she reels upon the grass underneath his invisible gaze, his words dripping over her sweet and soft and slow like honey.

"Beloved," he whispers. The afternoon sun brushes its warmth across her cheeks, the breeze bolder in its caresses, rippling the silk of her thin undershirt, her shalwars. "My intended," he croons without words, and she sinks into the grass, limbs leaden with heat. "My sweetest," he breathes, and the wind scatters petals upon her neck, her hair, her breasts, a string of fragrant kisses.

It's then she gasps, presses her thighs tight together and shivers in alarm, not knowing what she had just felt. She blinks her eyes open and sits up, shakes the petals from her hair and hugs her arms. It's still there, the shiver, the heat between her legs, and she blushes in shame. It is the same flush she had felt as a child when straddling a cushion, to the gasps and shocks of the older women, when she had been smacked and sternly told not to do it ever again. It is the same heat she'd felt when sharing her winter bed with other girls, her hips spooning into a maid's buttocks, when she'd had to suffocate her gasp into a pillow. 

Yet there is no man here, none, and by now she _knows_ she is going insane.

It's then the other girls shriek and run--from the rain, she realises, sudden and whipping down upon the garden in torrents. Rings upon rings of ripples break upon the pond as the girls leap past it to safety, indoors. They call out to her, but she waves them off, welcoming the shower. Heavy, great drops land on her bare arms as she spreads them, great drops warm upon her tongue as she stands up and laughs, drinking them in. 

"Beloved," the thunder rumbles, purrs against her like a hunting-pard, urges her to walk, to run across the glistening grass. "Come, come," the rain sings as it sluices over her, soaks her, licks her nipples into hard little peaks. "Would you not feel my arms?" the wind sighs into her ear through her dripping locks. "Would you not taste my kisses?" the rain drums upon her chest with its fingers. Rat-tat-tat-tat upon her breastbone, pawing at her silks, tu-tu-tu-tut goes her heart, and yet her man is nowhere to be found.

"Show yourself!" she cries, spinning around, her brows furrowed, her lungs heaving with frustration. "End this masquerade!" She leans her hands upon the small bridge that covers the pond, calling out to the heavens, a madwoman. "A djinni of flame or a man of flesh, I demand that you show yourself!"

And there, there, hovering over the bridge, a drop of black ink, spreading out, billowing out into the shape of a man. His robes unfurl like wings, and the blue of his eyes swallows her like a bird is swallowed into the vastness of the sky. And his smile, oh, his smile, a wicked, cruel smile as white and as jagged as the lightning flashing behind him. 

And in that moment, she knows she wants to, _needs_ to be devoured. A flick, another and she has undone the buttons of her shift, a third and her shalwars pool at her feet. Without fear, she steps forward and presses herself against him, against his heartbeat, a heartbeat as loud as her own. With the velvet of his cloak he gathers her into his arms, covering her with his darkness, cocooning her in his warmth. 

"Beloved," he whispers and takes her with his mouth, sweet and soft and slow like honey.

***  
END  
***


End file.
